Bikewalking

A good while ago my good pal desert photographer Richard Head showed me the picture above. It's from the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam war. Using bicycles, thousands of kilos of supplies were transported down narrow trails in the jungle. Because it wasn't a road it was hard to see from the air. If the Americans bombed one section the bike pushers just found another narrow trail.

The key thing is the stick poked into the end of the handlebars. It means you can push the bike while walking upright and without getting your shins barked by the pedles. It allows a bicycle to become a real beast of burden. 

If you've ever ridden with a load on the bike you'll know what a pain it is to walk it. In fact its a pain to walk with any bike. You have to lean over and stand slightly twisted. You have to watch out for the peddles, but they always get you eventually. By extending the handlebars that all changes. Now you can walk the bike very easily, even with a big load on the bike. I decided to make an extendable bar that you could slide in out of sight when you wanted to ride. Then it would be possible to have the best of both worlds. You could ride when the going was easy and walk easily when it wasn't.

The bar I attached is from a brush extender- aluminium, strong enough, with an inner pole that extends out.

After fixing it with cable ties I sawed off the ends.

Here is the bike with the bar extended.

You stand behind that and walk. It's actually easier than walking as you have something to lean on and add balance- useful when pushing through mud on my own Ho Chi Minh trail:

The great thing is that such terrain- awkward to ride up is a pleasure, kind of, to walk up. Here is the bike with the bar retracted when things got worse (better really, more fun) later on:

I envisage having a quickly releasable set of panniers on the back making it possible to tackle any trail and carry camping gear at the same time. I once walked the GR10 along the length of the Pyrenees and there was only one twenty foot section along a narrow cliffside path that I'd be nervous taking a mountain bike along. You could find a way round that section or rope up to be safe. Mountains are possible and so are deserts- carrying 20 litres of water on the bike make a five day desert trip a doable proposition- you push/walk over sand and ride along the gravel bits. The important thing to emphasise is that this is NOTHING like your old irritating experience of walking a bike. This is enjoyable, easy and comfortable.

quit or do what you like right now

Arthur Deikman had a great exercise called 'I quit'. It takes just ten minutes. You take ten minutes off from life to say 'i quit, I just quit' to every sugestion or thought or impulse or flash of guilt or idea that comes in to your mind. If you start to question the game remind yourself it is only for ten mniutes- BUT FOR THOSE TEN MINUTES you quit. The purpose is to free yourself from self imposed burdens, including pain, emotional turmoil and other elements of windblown mind trash, useful perhaps in another context but not here, not all blowing around.

Another good one for when you feel weighed down is 'do what you like right now'. For one day- yes an entire day you can manage that- you do EXACTLY what you want to do. Now you may think you do this already pretty much but my guess is most of the time you are running to keep up with things you have already set running. You are in fact doing exactly what you wanted to do last week except its now. Every time you write a list you are making yourself do a present urge sometime in the future. Of course this is just 'life', but for one day you don't do it. Do what you want to do right now. See what happens, how it feels.

As a matter of fact I am doing it as I write this. 

opportunity and difficulty

Recently I've been trying to 'sell' people on a new idea for the town in which I live. It's interesting to discover the people who get it straightaway, those who are mildly interested and those whose first instinct is to oppose. It reminded me that being a person who sees an opportunity in every difficulty is a posture worth nurturing; the opposite, seeing the difficult in every opportunity is the default setting of the culture, requiring no work to acquire...

structure versus buzz

I remember being at a management 'training' session in the Spanish hills when someone mooted the possibility of restructuring the company in order to hit some insanely optimistic sales forecasts. "Oh no," wailed the older, wiser financial chief, "Not more structure, anything but that!"

People love tinkering with structures and ignoring the people in the structures. In fact I suspect one is either a structure person or a people person. Good people can make any structure, however crap, work. Bad people in the best structure will fail.

People pay vast sums to management experts to restructure companies- ie. find hidden value and sell it off; over work people who were previously happy and now will be stressed...because the result improves the bottom line it attracts the robot-vampires in the world...

Actually worrying about structure should be way down the list. Buzz is far more important. If there is a buzz, a distinct energy about a person or project good things will probably happen. A buzz is infectious, it is the obvious evidence of energy somewhere. I include everything here from superficial hysteria and hype to a genuine enthusiasm about something valuable and useful.

Go where the energy is.

propaganda for progress

Does 'progress' need any more propaganda? 

Short Story- Snow Monkeys

Above the hot spring the snow monkeys stare with jowled furry faces from the trees. Steam rises from the limpid water. The snow monkeys make no noise. They patrol the branches with arched backs, slowly. They are known to be the most intelligent snow monkeys in all Japan.

The hot spring pool has a certain discernible surface tension so the skin or surface of the water seems thicker than it ought, rocks slippery with algae line the hotspring or onsen as the Japanese call them. A diverted cold stream enters from one end. The water can be turned on or off with a great copper tap, polished green with verdigris.

The naked professors are arriving to judge the intelligence of the monkeys. There are three of them, all of great age and seniority. All slide their skinny bodies into the piping hot water, a neatly folded cold wet towel on their heads their only garb.

How can you judge a snow monkey’s intelligence?

The naked professors concur that it is difficult. They call for a round of hot sake brought by a trainee courtesan, which is nothing unusual. They drink the sake and replace the tiny porcelain cups on the lacquer tray with great ceremony.

They ask the courtesan, who is 20, what she thinks. She says she believes that intelligence is not about what you know, but about how quickly you can change your mind when you are proved wrong.

The professors are highly struck by this answer and call for another round of hot sake. It is brought by a young man wrapped warmly in a winter kimono. The professors ask him how one could judge the intelligence of a snow monkey. The young man sets down the tray and says he has no idea and bows deeply. Then he suggests that intelligence is not about being thought clever, rather it is about predicting what is and is not a waste of time. Intelligent people do not waste their time.

The professors make a few appreciative noises but they are less taken with this definition of intelligence. Nevertheless they call for more hot sake.

High above them the snow monkeys patrol the bamboo grove, heavy with snow. The sky above is as dull and white as snow. There is a Japanese proverb, “Even monkeys fall from the trees;” these monkeys, wisely, prefer to live over snow, a soft landing from a high fall.

Make everything you do enjoyable

Everything you do try to make enjoyable in some way. If you can't make it enjoyable in some way, quit it. Do this for a year, a month, a week, however long you can keep it up.